In his letter explaining why the magazine created the list, Forbes' editor, Randall Lane, said such transparency could help the crypto industry move out of its shadowy beginnings to financial maturity.

Meet the world's richest bitcoin billionaires:

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13. Valery Vavilov, 38, founded the bitcoin-mining company BitFury in 2011, which has mined about 800,000 bitcoins and employs 400 people. He's worth $500 million to $700 million.

11. Brendan Blumer is the 31-year-old CEO of BlockOne, the company behind the blockchain platform EOS.IO. He is worth $600 million to $700 million.

10. Michael Novogratz, the 53-year-old CEO of the digital-assets bank Galaxy Digital and former hedge funder who was a billionaire before the 2007 recession, is now worth $700 million to $1 billion.

REUTERS/Rick Wilking

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9. Brock Pierce, a former child actor who now lives in Puerto Rico, has helped fund tons of crypto-based companies, including Coinbase and Tether. He's worth $700 million to $1 billion.

Nils Petter Nilsson/Ombrello/Getty Images for The Sime Awards

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8. Anthony Di Iorio, 43, founded the blockchain platform Ethereum and the cryptocurrency wallet Jaxx. He has invested in Qtum, Vechain, and ZCash, among others. His crypto fortune is worth $750 million to $1 billion.

REUTERS/Ethan Lou

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7. Matthew Roszak, the cofounder of the blockchain startup Bloq who founded Tally Capital, a crypto-focused private-investment firm, was an early investor in bitcoin. He now has $900 million to $1 billion in crypto.

6. Brian Armstrong, the 35-year-old CEO of the digital-currency exchange Coinbase, has a crypto fortune of $900 million to $1 billion.

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5. Matthew Mellon, a 54-year-old investor and an heir to the Mellon banking fortune, invested early in Ripple's XRP. He now has a crypto fortune of $900 million to $1 billion.

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Dom Perignon)

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4. Twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, 36, have an estimated crypto fortune of $900 million to $1.1 billion. The two were early investors in bitcoin and founded the digital-currency exchange Gemini in 2015.

Thomson Reuters

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3. Changpeng Zhao, the 41-year-old founder and CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has $1.1 billion to $2 billion in crypto investments.